There is probably no community in Israel that is more insular and harder to cover as an outsider than the ultra-Orthodox.
For more than a decade, AFP photographer Menahem Kahana has been documenting the most intimate moments of the Haredi community.
Kahana has photographed the surreal redemption of the first-born donkey ceremony. He has captured Haredi Purim drunks passed out in their chairs. He has photographed anti-Zionist Haredi demonstrators burning an Israeli flag. And his image of one Haredi demonstrator nearly trampled by an Israeli police officer on horseback was once chosen by Time Magazine as one of the best photos of the 20th century.
Kahana now has a special exhibition on display at Tel Aviv's Eretz Israel Museum that features dozens of his best photographs.
"The community, which to the outside spectator seems monotonous and rigid, opens up before us in all its glory and beauty, albeit with all its weaknesses too," said curator Alex Levac.
The photographs are remarkable for their naked intimacy as well as their style.
Most photographers are only able to capture fleeting images of the Haredi community. Kahana, a 50-year-old Israeli, is there for naked mud baths and the circumcisions and the weddings and the funerals.
Kahana's work, which will be on display in Tel Aviv until June 30th when it moves to Jerusalem, is drawing rave reviews from many of his peers.
But visitors apparently have had a mixed reaction. One called the images "appalling," while another challenged Kahana for showing photos of the donkey and the Israeli flag being burned.
"Each person has a right to live his life and believe in what he wants to believe," Kahana told Israel's Yedioth Ahronoth."I opened a window for us to peek into the Haredi world. They didn't ask for it. They don't force anyone to look inside, and those who are not interested shouldn't come to the exhibit."
For those who are curious and interested, the exhibition is well worth checking out.
(Photos: Menahem Kahana)
Keep in mind these are the Israelis who most benefit from the IDF's exertions but because of an Israeli law have to sacrifice not at all in the IDF itself. They also often control the Israeli government by way of their minority parties which wind up being the last part needed to form a government in Israel's parliamentary system. If it were just a two party system Israel wouldn't have to depend on them and could actually take actions that might help solve the persistent problems of peace in the middle east.
Posted by: jimbo | February 17, 2009 at 06:58 PM
These people have become the repositories of the faith. Without their study of our Holy Torah it would have been forgotten. No Torah no Judaism. No Judaism means no reason for israel to even exist.
But I do think a fair compromise could be worked out The haredi students should do two years in the army and the secular people should do two years in the yeshiva.
Posted by: Chaim | February 25, 2009 at 12:17 PM